The Fallout From Venezuela’s Crisis Is Spreading Across South America

The EditorsWednesday, April 17, 2019

It’s been nearly three months since Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president, vowing to oust Nicolas Maduro and bring the country’s protracted crisis to an end. But while Guaido successfully managed to muster international support from a host of countries in Latin America and beyond, it appears that hopes for a speedy improvement in conditions for ordinary Venezuelans are bound to go unmet.

That’s the case not just for Venezuelans who are still in the country, but also for those who have migrated to neighboring Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America. Officials in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and beyond have tried to be accommodating, but there remains a significant gap between the needs of Venezuelan migrants and the resources that have been allocated by the international community, and anti-Venezuelan sentiment in the region is on the rise.

Megan Janetsky has been reporting on the crisis from Colombia. She was on the ground in the border town of Cucuta in late February when Venezuelan and opposition forces clashed over the attempted delivery of humanitarian aid, and she has interviewed Venezuelans throughout the region. In this week’s interview episode of the podcast, she talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the roots of the crisis, the formidable obstacles to addressing it and what’s likely to happen in the months to come.

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